Selection pool

What it is

The selection pool is the group of roles from which redundancies are chosen. Defining it is the first real decision in any redundancy, and the one most often challenged.

How Maltese law approaches it

“Selection pool” is a common term, but the Employment and Industrial Relations Act (Cap. 452) speaks of the class of employment affected. Where redundancy is the ground, the employer must terminate the employment of the person engaged last in that class (article 36(4)). Where there is no collective agreement listing groups of employees, the class refers to the work performed, independently of the title given to the post (article 2): a pool drawn around a single title, when others do the same work, will be questioned.

If the post becomes available again within one year, the person made redundant is entitled to be re-employed in it, on conditions no less favourable (proviso to article 36(3)). See right to re-employment.

Drawing the pool

• start from the work, not the organisation chart: who does the same or interchangeable work?
• include people on other teams, sites or group companies only where the work and the employer are in truth the same;
• record why the pool was drawn as it was, before anyone is named;
• apply the selection rule within the pool consistently, and keep the record.

Where it goes wrong

• a pool of one, built around the person the employer wants to lose;
• a pool that leaves out more recent recruits doing the same work;
• refilling the post soon after under a new title.

These are the facts an Industrial Tribunal looks for. For larger exercises, see collective redundancy.